Thiobacillus Thiopharus – Folha de S. Paulo, January 3, 1977

 

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

Forgive me, reader, for the banality of this assertion. When someone suffers a fracture and a severe scratch on the arm from a fall, they may not notice the scratch. If left untreated, the scratch can become infected and worsen to the point that it becomes more severe than the fracture.

In short, greater damage sometimes obscures a lesser one, and in certain circumstances, the lesser damage may be more severe than the greater.

This thought occurred to me while I read a three-month-old news item (how quickly news ages in today’s feverish world) in Time magazine, which reproduced an AP dispatch from Port of Spain, Trinidad.

According to the news, the new, small Caribbean nations that recently became independent inaugurated democratic, parliamentary, and multiparty regimes, following the English model inherited from the Commonwealth.

However, these regimes deteriorated rapidly and drifted toward advanced land-reformist socialism. Some of these nations, leading the march toward the abyss, especially British Guiana and Jamaica, are beginning to declare themselves Marxist.

Thus, fourteen Caribbean nations are marching in single file toward communism.

The ongoing concern Cuba has caused in the anticommunist world has prevented Western opinion from recognizing and countering the damage suffered by the Caribbean.

And so, communism advances silently but steadily in this area as well, without encountering obstacles.

“Without encountering obstacles” is an understatement. How often does this process advance with the support of the capitalists themselves, who are so reviled and beaten down by the communists?

It would seem that a mysterious disease is undermining anticommunist resistance across a wide range of sectors. As a result, the communists are facing inertia and complacency they would not have dared to dream of early in the century.

This reminds me of a news item I read a few days ago reporting that a mysterious bacillus, “Thiobacillus thiopharus,” is attacking the marble supporting the famous Doge’s Palace in Venice and the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, which houses Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” causing severe damage that threatens to destroy these monuments.

It seems that something similar is happening to almost all the marble columns that still support the remnants of our civilization.

* * *

Perhaps this is why Lenin, anticipating such an event and having spilled rivers of blood in Russia, told his followers about a decisive attack on the barriers the communists had not yet breached:

“Postpone the operation until the enemy’s moral disintegration makes a mortal blow possible and easy; the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

Lenin erred on only one point. His successors do not need to buy that rope, as the capitalists are giving it to them. Even worse, they are paying them a lot of money to accept it.

What rope is this?

It is a symbol of all loans and purchases made and never paid for, favorable publicity, etc., with which almost all the powerful nations of the West have been favoring the Soviet world since Nixon’s visit to China.

Thus nourished, the Soviet world can accumulate the reserves it would need to avoid worsening hunger and a serious revolution, and divert them to overarm and thereby break the military balance that has more or less existed until now with the West.

* * *

Many do not see this or care about it. They are blind. Even blinder are those who see yet do not care, and there are many of them. How to explain this suicidal blindness? “Thiobacillus thiopharus”…

* * *

I am glad to end this article on a positive note by praising a bishop, Most Rev. François Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, auxiliary bishop of Saigon. According to the Denver Catholic Register of June 23, he was thrown into a secret prison by the communists for opposing the progressive invasion “in the liturgy and priestly organizations.” The prelate was imprisoned in the village of Cay Vong but was later transferred to a secret prison after citizens began visiting him and seeking his advice.

The simplicity of this account is natural. Why waste adjectives to explain the veneration, affection, and pride every genuine Catholic feels upon hearing news of a bishop, a successor of the Apostles, who resists?

In these days when we still feel the spiritual warmth of Holy Christmas, let us remember the loneliness and suffering of this true Shepherd, tormented by the clutches of Soviet Satan. And let us pray a Magnificat and a “Hail Holy Queen.” A Magnificat for the courage God gave him, and a “Hail Holy Queen” so that the Mother of Mercy may obtain for him even greater courage until victory on earth or in Heaven.